Stress and the Gastrointestinal Tract I. Stress and hepatic inflammation

Swain, Mark G. Stress and the Gastrointestinal Tract. I. Stress and hepatic inflammation. Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol 279: G1135–G1138, 2000.— Stress is an everpresent part of modern life. The “stress response” constitutes an organism’s mechanism for coping with a given stress and is mediated via the release of glucocorticoids and catecholamines. Patients often complain of stress-related worsening of their liver disease; however, the interrelationship between stress and hepatic inflammation is incompletely understood and has received little scientific attention. Considering the broad impact glucocorticoids and catecholamines have on immune cell function, it is very likely that stress has a significant impact on the hepatic inflammatory response. This themes article discusses studies of the stress response and its peripheral effectors (glucocorticoids and catecholamines) in liver disease and their impact on hepatic inflammation and outlines potential areas for future scientific investigation.